Kids

Senses Experiment: Tasting - With Your Nose?

How your sense of smell helps you taste foods. Without your nose, you may not be able to tell the difference between foods — especially if the foods all have the same texture (for instance, jelly beans with various flavors, gloppy yogurt and pudding, or slices of different fruits and vegetables).

A grown-up to help

A friend or two

A blindfold

Foods to taste, such as different flavored jelly beans, different fruit and vegetable slices, or a variety of yogurts and puddings

Spoons, if necessary

A cup of drinking water for everyone

Blindfold a friend.

Ask your friend to pinch his or her nose.

Offer your friend one flavor of the food at a time.

Can he or she identify it? (Your friend might want a drink of water between the different foods.)

Offer the same food and tell your friend to unpinch his or her nose. Now does your friend know what it is?